People pray during a memorial rosary in honor of Blair and Brooke Harber and Lila Bonner at St. Rita Catholic Community Church in Dallas on Friday. The three girls were among those who lost their lives in last year’s deadly Central Texas flooding.
Anja Schlein/The Dallas Morning News
Rosaries and tissues lined the table near the entrance to St. Rita Catholic Community. Parishioners quietly filtered into the church, dipping their fingers in the holy water and making the sign of the cross. The church pews began to fill as people took their seats.
Found with their hands interlocked, clutching their rosaries, sisters Brooke and Blair Harber are just two of the many that died in the floods that ravaged the Texas Hill Country last Independence Day.
Both Harber sisters attended the parish and Catholic private school in Northwest Dallas. St. Rita Catholic Community held a memorial rosary, or communal prayer service, Friday evening to honor the lives of the Harber sisters and others who lost their lives in the flood.
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Related: Remembering the victims of the Kerr County floods
Lila Bonner, a nine-year-old victim who attended Camp Mystic, was honored alongside the Harber sisters at the memorial rosary.
The community came together in the year since the flood to host several events to honor the lives that were lost. The memorial service was in remembrance of who the young girls were and the short lives they lived, not the tragic way they ended. The parents of the Harber sisters were not present at the service.
Father Joshua Whitfield, the pastor at the church, said he feels God’s presence in his community and in their ability to keep going and keep helping.
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“It’s paradoxical to say that St. Rita is at its best in such tragedy,” Whitfield said. “We certainly saw that a year ago and we’ve seen it in the year since, especially among the young people who have proven faithful in their endurance.”
Friends of Brooke, 11, and Blair, 13, were seen wearing yellow and pink shirts for the respective sisters. Kneeling down in the pews with their eyes closed and reciting Hail Mary and Our Father in unison, the girls remembered their friends and classmates.
Friends pray during a memorial rosary Friday in honor of Blair and Brooke Harber and Lila Bonner, who lost their lives in last year’s Texas Hill Country flood.
Anja Schlein/The Dallas Morning News
Full of Grace, the Lord is with Thee.
“Brooke always found a way to connect with everyone,” Zoe Katherine Whitfield, 12, said.
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Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus.
“Blair is watching over us now and has us in her heart,” Blair’s soccer teammate and schoolmate said.
Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death.
“The rosary, it’s a big part of Catholic life,” Whitfield said. “It was big with the girls, especially with Blair.”
Brooke and Blair were staying at a cabin on the Guadalupe River with their grandparents. As the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry came through the Texas Hill Country, 20 inches of rain fell over the region over the course of four days. Starting in the early morning of July 4 last year, almost seven inches of rain fell in the first three hours, causing the Guadalupe River to rise 26 feet in 45 minutes.
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The catastrophic flooding claimed the lives of 139 people, including 27 campers and camp counselors at the all-girls Camp Mystic.
Friends light candles Friday during a memorial rosary in honor of Blair and Brooke Harber and Lila Bonner, who lost their lives in last year’s Texas Hill Country flood.
Anja Schlein/The Dallas Morning News
Young girls who went to school with the sisters stood after the rosary and lit candles for them. Allowing their faith to carry them through the loss of their friends, they said they leaned on one another and the Lord.
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“Healing definitely looks like helping each other continue,” Whitfield said. “Go to school, celebrate Christmas and the Fourth of July, because death is a part of life. It’s not that life is a part of death, it’s that death is a part of life. Figuring that out, living it, is key.”